Had she just lumped him into the same category as Joshua? Fuck if that didn’t make his stomach clench and roll. “Alyssa—”

“I should have asked more questions about your reasons for marrying me.” Her tone was a verbal lash to her own psyche, and hearing it damn near killed him. “I knew you’d proposed because of the baby. Deep down, I’d hoped that you cared for me, but . . . I never imagined that you actually married me believing the baby wasn’t yours.”

Luc closed his eyes as his world imploded. Someone had told her his secret, his shame. Someone had given her the information and let her draw the worst conclusions. Since only two people knew, and Deke would never spill, he knew exactly who had revealed the truth.

Kimber he’d deal with later. Now he had to talk to Alyssa, make her understand that his reasons for being married—staying married—had everything to do with her, not just the baby.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you about my . . . condition. The fact the baby likely isn’t mine doesn’t change anything for me. I care about you every bit as much as I care about this baby.”

Finally, she flashed blue eyes that spit fire at him. “Are you going to try to convince me that, since our marriage, I’ve come to mean something to you?”

Luc grabbed her shoulders and forced his gaze deep into hers. “You meant something to me even before we married. I was so elated and relieved to see you the day you appeared at the department store. I was ready to drop to my knees, say anything, just to make you talk to me. To become engaged to you that night was more than I ever dared to hope for.”

She rolled her eyes. “Stop! Be honest! I appeared with the answer to your fertility problem. Then I mattered. A woman you like to fuck conveniently got pregnant. Hallelujah! And even if the baby isn’t yours—I guess that’s a minor detail in your head—why not suddenly heap adoration on her and persuade her to marry you?” Every word dripped scorn. “Why not become her husband under false pretenses and encourage her to bear her soul to you? She’s just a fertile womb.”

The barrage of accusations pelted Luc, and he winced. He’d have to answer her quickly if he wanted to diffuse this situation. Clearly, he’d hurt her much worse than he’d imagined. She felt used. That, he’d never seen coming. Damn it to hell.

“That is not true. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about my sterility. In this moment, I regret it more than you know. Yes, you did come to me with a convenient solution to my problem, but what I feel for you is so much more.” He brought her closer, willing her to understand. “I missed you when we were apart. Being separated from you felt like a part of myself was missing, and I had a gaping hole in my chest where you used to be. I’d love more than anything for this baby to be mine, but . . . the odds are against me.”

“So, Sherlock, whose baby is it? Tyler’s?”

It would be so easy to lie to her—and so wrong. “I assumed that at first. I know how he feels about you, and the way he touches you is so familiar, as if he’s done that—and more—a thousand times. But you’ve said that you aren’t lovers, and I’ve come to know you well enough to know that you’re not a liar.”

“Wish I had that same sense of security about you,” she hurled at him. “So, at the time we married, you assumed Tyler was the lucky sperm donor. Since you’ve figured out that’s not true, who do you assume I whored myself to? Random customers at the club?”

He cupped her face in his hands. “Of course not. Either Peter raped you, and you don’t remember the event—”

“I remember everything perfectly. He never penetrated me. This is your child.”

“His attack was traumatic,” Luc hedged.

Alyssa wrenched away from his touch. “I didn’t block it out. If I can still remember the smell of the chlorine bleach on my sheets and the fact my childhood teddy bear stared me in the face while Joshua forcibly took my virginity, I think I can remember whether or not Peter succeeded in raping me.”

Dear God. Luc fought an urge to clutch her against him, and his stomach turned inside out at her words. She sounded so certain that Peter hadn’t succeeded in violating her, which meant . . . Was it really possible that he’d managed to get her pregnant?

“Or?” she snapped. “What’s the ‘or’?”

“Or . . . my doctor was wrong about the severity of my condition.”

“Someone get the man a prize.” She bounded off the bed, away from him.

He grabbed Alyssa and pulled her back into his lap. She struggled and squirmed to get free. He held her firmly, but not tightly. He wanted her to listen, not be frightened.

“God, I wish more than anything that my doctor had been wrong. I’d love to know that the life growing inside you now is one we created together. But understand that, after years of being told that would be more or less impossible, it’s hard for me to comprehend.”

Her anger slipped into a mask of resignation. “I understand that. If a doctor tells you something is impossible, you believe it. I would. I don’t blame you for that at all.”

Thank God. Maybe they could work through this mess.

Then she worked free of his grip and bolted across the room, fists clenched, and screamed through gritted teeth, “What I can’t stand is the goddamn deception!”

Her demeanor shouted, “Stay the fuck away,” and Luc respected it. Trying to comfort her would only be counterproductive, and he wanted her to work through her anger. She was definitely entitled to it. Certainly he was questioning his decisions now. Had not telling her the truth been truly been keeping the peace or mere cowardice?

“I can only tell you that, when you informed me you were pregnant, I wanted you and the baby so badly, I don’t have words to explain it. Every nerve in my body screamed at me to make you mine forever. I didn’t think that telling the truth would serve any purpose except to tear us apart.”

“The truth is tearing us apart.” She shook her head, face tense. Tears threatened to spill, and Luc hated that he’d put that look on her face. “When we married, it was enough for me that you were the father of my baby. I thought I loved you enough for both of us, and that someday, you might come to love me, too.”

She loved him? The elation he should have felt died a quick death, strangled by fear. Alyssa had spoken in past tense.

“You don’t have to hope, sugar. I love you. I—”

“Convenient to say now. Do you really think three words will make everything better?”

Luc stood, swallowing down his dread. “No, and that’s not why I’m saying them now. I know it will take time for me to prove it to you. But it’s the truth, and I’m relieved to finally say how I feel.”

Alyssa turned her back on him. “How am I supposed to ever believe you?”

He didn’t have an easy answer except trust—the one thing he’d shattered between them. “Please . . . I swear. I’m telling you the truth.”

“The same sort of truth you told when you led me to believe you knew the baby was yours?” She laughed. “They’re just words and they don’t mean a damn thing.”

“That’s crap! From where I’m standing, they mean everything.” Luc raked a hand through his hair. How to make her see that his feelings were deep and wide and went on forever? “We married because you were pregnant. You’re still pregnant, and I still want to be a husband and father. This could have been any other marriage of convenience . . . except we fell in love. Love, sugar. It’s too good to just throw away. We have to come together and work through the misunderstanding, even if it takes a while.”

“It’s not a misunderstanding; it’s a lie. You can’t use those three little words to put a verbal Band-Aid over the fact that you apparently have so little respect for me, you immediately assumed the baby was another man’s. You kept critical information from me, seduced me into believing you cared—”

“I do care, goddamn it! Have you been listening? I. Love. You. I never really knew what that meant until you.”

Alyssa shot him a disbelieving glare. “You love me so much you never told me the truth, never bothered to get a second opinion about whether you could possibly father a child, just in case your doctor was wrong—”

“Actually, I made an appointment on Friday to be retested at a clinic in L.A. I’m hoping the second opinion will be different and this baby is mine.”

“This new doctor will tell you what I already know: You’re capable of siring a child. I have no doubt you’ll be an incredible father, and I’ll never take this child away from you. He or she is half you and should know its father. But none of the rest of this shit matters. For us, your sudden confession and ‘I love you’s are too little, too late. Good-bye, Luc.”

THE day after Thanksgiving, and Luc stared out the window of his Tyler, Texas, home at the blustery, gray day. He had reasons to be thankful, he supposed. Feeling it was impossible when he was numb to everything but the terrible emptiness inside him, an emptiness he knew could be filled only by his wife.

And Alyssa wasn’t talking to him. At all.

He’d left their house in Lafayette after their argument to give her some space, some time. In the ensuing twelve hours, she’d changed the locks at both her residence and the restaurant, as well as her home and cell phone numbers. The next night, he’d waited in Bonheur’s packed parking lot like a damn stalker for her to lock up and head home, just so he might steal a few minutes with her, try to explain again that he was sorry and he loved her.

Instead, Tyler had rushed her to her car and curled his arm around her protectively the second they’d seen him next to her car. Tyler had shoved him away just long enough to allow Alyssa to escape. The bastard had paid for it; Luc knew he had a mean right cross. But it was too late to exchange even a word with his wife.

The next night, she’d called him from the restaurant to reiterate her plea to leave her alone. Before he could say much more than he was sorry and that he loved her, she’d hung up.

That had been a long, miserable eight days ago. Earlier this week, he’d gone back to L.A. and finished his taping. He could only imagine what those episodes looked like, since he’d been on autopilot the whole time. No doubt he’d get a call back to reshoot some.

Yesterday, he’d likely ruined Deke and Kimber’s Thanksgiving holiday. They had so much to be thankful for and had invited all of Kimber’s family. Luc had tried to fade into the background, but Hunter had stared with those knowing eyes as he’d shaken his head and muttered, “Stupid fucker.” His younger brother, Logan, had concurred.

“Anything from Alyssa?” Kimber tiptoed up to him, looking so contrite that he could hardly be angry with her. She’d merely assumed that, since Alyssa was his wife, he’d been honest with her about his “condition.”

“No.”

“I’m so, so—”

“I know.” Luc couldn’t hear her apologize again. It only reminded him of everything that was wrong and wouldn’t change a damn thing. He gouged the heels of his palms into his eyes. “Why didn’t I learn the first time? Besides being my cousin, Deke is my best friend. I kept the truth from him, too. It almost cost me our friendship. And I still didn’t fucking learn. I wanted her and that baby so badly . . .” He sighed. “I checked my ethics at the door.”

“You thought she was lying to you as well, right, about who the baby’s father was?”

“Yeah, and at the time, that’s how I justified my deception. But damn it, to quote a cliché, two wrongs don’t make a right.”

“True.” Kimber sighed. “What are you going to do? I’ve never seen you this miserable.”

“There are some things I should be elated about, you know? A year ago, when I first started hearing from the cable network, the show was a dream come true. For that to actually be a reality now . . . It’s everything I’ve worked for, one of the goals in the back of my head when I stayed up until all hours cooking the same dish for the tenth time that day and changing just one ingredient to see if I could make it better. It’s one of the reasons I broke my back to make so many personal appearances, put out the best possible cookbooks. I wanted this opportunity to reach avid foodies and share my love of sophisticated Southern cooking.”

“I’m sure the shows will be great. Your personality will draw viewers in. I just know it.”

He shrugged. “Maybe. Thing is, I’m not sure I care that much anymore.”

Kimber squeezed his hand. “You’re just upset. God, if I’d had any idea—”

“Don’t blame yourself for my wrongdoing. If I hadn’t married her under false pretenses, I wouldn’t be in this mess.”